This past week, a Jaspers’ mascot survey was sent to students and faculty.
The email contained a link with five simple questions that will aid in the development of a new physical representation of a Jasper.
This effort was not an overnight decision, but something that different entities on campus had wanted and discussed for years. This semester, efforts were canalized into concrete actions to have the mascot ready by next semester’s basketball season.
The process has been conducted by student government, in an effort to increase school spirit on campus.
“We feel so left out that we don’t have some type of character or symbol that can represent what we think Manhattan Jaspers can represent,” Phillip Mourikes, executive vice president of student government, said. “We wanted to get it last semester, in time for the basketball season, but unfortunately [it] is a long process.”
The design and creation of the character will be executed by an external consulting firm that has had experience designing the most recent logos of Manhattan College and developming mascots for other universities.
The survey is the first major step of this long process, and after the firm collects the information provided by the community, they will start developing the first concepts and logos representing the new school spirit. After this, a couple of meetings with faculty and students will select the final design, which would then have to be approved by campus administration.
These first steps are scheduled to be finished by the end of this semester, so the consulting firm can develop the physical mascot during the summer and have it ready by next fall.
“This is the first official mascot in the history of Manhattan College,” Mourikes said. “We have a great burden to not screw this up.”
This mascot would not only be useful to the athletic department, but Student Engagement believes that it would play an important role in increasing the contact with alumni and the community.
“The mascot would be used at so many events. Besides athletic events which seems obvious, there are great alumni events and mission based events it would be at, including all our major events throughout the year,” John Bennett, director of student engagement, said. “Think about how many times you see community service being done on TV in the news, if a team or school visits a hospital for instance. You always see the mascot present. It’ll be great that we’ll be able to have that in the future as well and bring a smile to someone’s face.”
Nearly 500 students and counting have completed the survey. Bennett encourages as many students as possible to share their thoughts and be part of the historic process to select Manhattan College’s first mascot.